Lining up at Swan Oyster Depot

The kitchen

Sour Dough Bread and butter

Clam Chowder

Oysters on the half shell

Combination salad

Sea Urchin

After eating that lovely breakfast at Farm:Table we proceeded to Swan Oyster Depot to get our seafood fix; some really positive reviews, so I was quite hopeful. Honestly, I’ve heard of them before but it was definitely thanks to Anthony Bourdain’s The Layover that got my excitement going again. They actually open pretty early at 8am (who says you can’t have seafood for breakfast?!) and per the time change from EST/GMT-5 to PST/GMT-8 it was about lunch time for me, so that worked out nicely. Albeit the early start, the line actually got quite long; about a 30-45min wait. Surprising, but not too bad.

As far as the food goes, there is no question that the seafood was fresh but the selection was not to the level I was hoping for; most likely this was due to seasonality. Maybe I just went in with too high of expectations. But what they do have, is all great. The best thing was definitely the Sea urchin. Definitely an advanced foodie type of cuisine as the Sea Urchin’s outer shell was still moving! You have been warned. 🙂

Definitely need to go back sometime between mid-November and early spring when they have the Dungeness Crab. Oh, important!!! Bring cash, they don’t take credit cards, checks, or allow you to barter with your first born.

Swan Oyster Depot (information gathered 2/2013)
1517 Polk St,
San Francisco, CA 94109
415.673.2757
Hours
Mon – Sat 8:00am – 5:30pm
Sun Closed

Parking:
Much like at Farm:Table, your best bet is to find a parking deck. It looks like parking is fairly limited.

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